


and i've had recurring nightmares that i was loved for who i am

by cherrychurch



Category: The Magnus Archives (Podcast)
Genre: M/M, Mind Melding, Porn Without Plot, Transgender Characters, Vaginal Fingering, but quite a lot of exposition in there before the porn, even if that so called dinner is the equivalent of sitting in an empty Denny's at 3 am, sex through proxy, so you do atleast get taken to dinner beforehand
Language: English
Status: Completed
Published: 2020-03-27
Updated: 2020-03-27
Packaged: 2021-03-01 04:35:28
Rating: Explicit
Warnings: No Archive Warnings Apply
Chapters: 1
Words: 6,924
Publisher: archiveofourown.org
Story URL: https://archiveofourown.org/works/23339254
Author URL: https://archiveofourown.org/users/cherrychurch/pseuds/cherrychurch
Summary: “Your desires are not a danger to you,” Michael said. It seemed like an attempt to be reassuring, but he sounded jealous in a way that made Gerard’s heart ache.“Neither are yours,” he offered.
Relationships: Gerard Keay/Michael
Comments: 16
Kudos: 238





	and i've had recurring nightmares that i was loved for who i am

**Author's Note:**

> This fic features 2 adult trans men and uses the words "clit" and "cunt" but no other similar words. Top surgery scars get brought up multiple times in both sexual and non sexual context. Weird as the topic might be, everything that takes place is consensual, desired, and enjoyed. There's blood at the end, but nothing more than what's canon typical, no violence takes place in the fic and no one gets hurt. 
> 
> This is a gift for a friend, but I hope all of you enjoy it. Thankyou for reading!

"You're just making yourself at home now, huh?"

Gerard had been right when his gut told him his hotel room wouldn't be empty. Michael, so tall his feet were nearly hanging off the edge of the hotel bed, greeted him with a smile that lasted only as long as it would have taken him to say the word 'hello'.

This had been going on long enough for Gerard to be past the point of realizing that "don't you have anything better to do?" wasn't the right question.

It was the second time Michael dropped by that week, or maybe the first, if Gerard actually put some thought into what day it was. Something about Michael's visits was that it was hard to pinpoint when they'd happened, and keeping track of the days while traveling was already a pain in the ass that Gerard couldn't bother with.

"Have you been waiting here a while?" he asked as he slipped out of his coat, bending down to pull his boots untied.

"I put your cans in the bin," said Michael.

Gerard looked up from hastily tugging his boots off. Sure enough, the half a dozen empty cans he'd left piled on the nightstand were gone. Soda and beer, mostly, collected over the period of the last couple days and ready to be replaced by the 6 pack he'd lugged up to the room with him.

"Really?" he asked, eyebrows raised, and then, "Recycling?"

"Yes."

It was obvious in the tone of his voice that he had anticipated being able to finally say it. Trying not to smile, Gerard dropped himself casually on the bed next to Michael. He gave his leg a gentle, affectionate kick. "You didn't have to do that."

"No," Michael said. "I really didn't."

And Gerard, who knew exactly what Michael was trying to get across despite his attempt at being impassive, allowed himself to smile then. "Well, thanks."

He gave Michael the kiss on the cheek that he knew he'd been waiting for and held back a laugh at the way he refused to react.

"Happy?" he taunted.

"You ought to clean up after yourself," Michael said.

"What, and miss out on you trying to flirt by doing it for me?"

Gerard liked their routine.

Michael definitely hadn't cared about whether or not his presence was a bother when their little visits first started. At first, Gerard thought it was purely his nature, to drop in at all the most inconvenient times like a stray returning for food, but by the time it escalated from a recurring annoyance to what might've been mutual enjoyment of eachother's company to laying on a hotel bed having their first kiss, it was becoming clear that the same thought Michael put into being a badly timed nuisance extended to an understanding of when all the right times to show up were, too.

"I could almost think you like being around me," he'd told Michael, once. Saying it had felt like testing the waters, had taken a lot of hesitation before he could spit it out. "That can't be a good look for you, can it?"

"Is it a good look for you?" Michael had asked in return.

Gerard clicked his tongue. "Got me," he'd said.

"You know it's stupid of us to spend this much time together, right?" he had asked another time, when they were laying next to each other in a cramped bed not exchanging any words at all. Michael lay flat as a board with his hands folded on his stomach, Gerard resting on his side just a few inches away. Michael had turned his head towards him at a perfectly hinged angle, not unlike a door swinging open, without the rest of his body shifting even slightly.

His only response was "Hmmm."

And that was what Gerard started thinking about, this time, that faux-thoughtful _Hmmm_ Michael had given him. Laying in those same positions on a bed that was atleast more conveniently sized, playing with Michael's hair and smiling because Michael did something considerate, that little hum echoed in his mind over and over and over.

Hmmm. Hmmm. Hmmm.

If it wasn't a lingering wisp of human desperation, then Michael was showing an incredible dedication to a slow, agonizing kill, but it had to be one or the other. Gerard couldn't rationalize the idea that his company could be enjoyable enough to distract a monster into deciding not to kill him. The way he felt towards Michael was too laced with vulnerability to be genuine, so why would Michael's feelings be legitimate either?

All those years of unhealthy repression under the guise of his own safety and this was where it got him: nowhere. One kind gesture was enough to send him reeling into replaying every single one of their conversations in his mind like he was suffering through his first crush. A single kind gesture, and not even an important one.

He wrapped Michael's hair around his finger, let it fall into a shape that was neither flat nor curled, coiled it again so tight that the tip of his finger turned purple. 

It was those trivial gestures that made him like Michael. It was a lot of things, and as much as he treated it like one, this wasn't a revelation. He'd known for a while that he was in too deep.

He couldn't even pretend he'd gotten more tactful over the weeks they'd spent flirting with death and eachother. He still hadn't learned his lesson that he shouldn't give in to his dangerous impulses; in fact, he had gotten worse at letting them control him, and that was why he was still as fucked as he'd been when he threw caution to the wind and kissed Michael for the first time.

Of course that would be part of the terrible Greatest Hits he was about to play on loop.

He'd been smoking a cigarette, angling his head out of Michael's way every time he exhaled. "The smoke doesn't bother me the way it once did," he'd said once, or something along those lines, but just because he barely breathed didn't mean he wasn't worth being given the common courtesy of not blowing clouds of smoke into his face.

They were already laying so close; when Gerard looked back on it, he would remember that being so close was hardly new. That they'd been hovering around eachother that way for a while, their shoulders touching, or their legs brushing casually, or their heads knocking if they happened to move at the same time (but Michael didn't move, much).

He was joking about the way he felt after his top surgery, which should have been a sign that he was getting dangerously comfortable around Michael. He would remember it wasn't that odd when Michael started playing with the bottom edge of his shirt, rolling the fabric between his fingers. That he did the same thing all the time with the sleeve of Michael's coat, with strands of his hair.

It was when his hand started drifting upwards that Gerard, bemused, had blown a puff of smoke out through his nose and chimed “What's up, weirdo?"

Michael’s hand paused just beneath his ribs. “Your scars,” he’d said, simply.

Gerard had made a face, not having expected that. "From my surgery?"

Michael hummed an affirmation. Gerard could remember how Michael's hands had felt on his stomach, heavy and sharp. He likely couldn't have forgotten how it felt even if he wanted to.

"What, are you asking to see them?" Gerard asked incredulously.

"Asking," Michael had said. He smiled. "I suppose. Yes."

"They're nothing special," Gerard mumbled. He'd pawed at his chest like he was making sure it was still flat. "Have you not seen top surgery scars before?"

He remembered realizing then that he had never shown anyone before, had never gotten the chance even if he did happen to want to. Michael loved to poke and prod at tender things, so it shouldn't have been a surprise that he would want to know more.

"I have," Michael said. And then he'd smiled wider, and laughed, and, thinking about it made Gerard's whole heart twist itself up no matter how many times he went over it in his head, said “But I will not show you mine."

And Gerard had said “Oh” as his reluctance melted away and he was smacked over the head with how utterly and completely and thoroughly screwed he was. 

But he'd had no time to think about how far he'd let himself fall because the words "Actually- I- I'm sorry- can I kiss you?" had spilled out of his mouth before he could stop himself.

What frustrated him more than anything was that he was glad he'd done it.

It was quick and careless, the first time, so fast that the word "yes" hardly had time to reach Gerard's ears when it left Michael's mouth. Michael had looked pleasantly stunned as if he hadn't known it was coming, and then laughed, and laughed, and laughed, and laughed for so long and at such a frequency that it made Gerard's ears ring and he kissed him again to make it stop for a few seconds.

He recognized their budding relationship as what it was right away, of course: desperation. The connection he felt between the similarities of their bodies was little more than an attempt to rationalize his own weakness; he was grasping at the first meager crumb of companionship he'd found, and that was all there was to it. Nothing deeper. He’d fallen behind on fighting off the vulnerability caused by years of being miserable and closed off because he had gotten so good at it, and when the walls kept themselves up, he barely had to put any effort into making sure he was still guarded. He must have stopped altogether until the instinct atrophied and the yearning could break through again.

And he made it all the more dangerous by allowing himself to get drawn in by his recognition of the exact same desperate carelessness in Michael, by the way his humanity peeked out from behind all of the behaviors he tried to hide it with. A humorless laugh, an enraged coldness in his eyes, a habit of pretending that seemed to have roots deeper than just the Spiral’s typical deceptions. The Spiral wanted very badly to not be Michael, but not near as badly as Michael wanted it.

He would flip between hiding his secrets behind sparse, cryptic words and sharing over-eagerly. It painted an interesting picture, an unstable illusion of someone who used to be but wasn't now, and the difficulty that Michael had keeping that person-who-wasn't-but- _was_ under reigns.

Ridiculous, that they were both this reckless. More so that Gerard was dumb enough to believe even for a second that he wasn’t the only reckless one there.

It couldn't have been what was on Michael's mind when those obnoxious yellow doors started showing up in Gerard's peripheral vision, atleast. Even in his ever present stupidity he could find some comfort in that he had thrown Michael off his guard a bit, regardless of if he'd done so by being too easy of a target.

"You asked if I was waiting a long time," Michael said suddenly, interrupting the introspection that was just on the edge of turning into sentimental daydreaming. Gerard shook his humiliating thoughts off like a bird drying its feathers. He was forgetting how he'd gotten to that point in the first place—right. He'd said something to Michael about flirting.

He stared at the blond locks curled around his finger. "Were you?"

"I knew you weren't here," cooed Michael, like that was an answer, in the buzzing tone of voice that always made Gerard's skull itch. "I would not call it _waiting_."

"When you sit around waiting for me, do you use that time to think up your best cryptic quips?" Gerard joked. 

Michael laughed, a single breathy 'ha'. 

"No," he said flatly.

"Atleast admit you brought it up just so you could say that." Gerard gave Michael's hair a soft, teasing tug. "You're allowed to be proud of the work you put into being confusing."

He was still figuring them out, feeling for the jagged seam where they had all been pasted together, but there were definitely parts of Michael that had been off-kilter even before the Spiral.

Michael's eyes flickered towards him. He didn't want Gerard to know which parts they were.

"Am I?" he asked.

Gerard thought on it before answering. "Not as much as you want to be," he settled on, because it was the truth.

Michael's gaze darted away just as quickly. He seemed to reflect on it, maybe not liking the answer he'd been given, maybe disappointed that his ruse wasn't as effective as he'd hoped. Maybe he was celebrating his victory, relieved that he'd been successful in convincing Gerard Keay that parts of him were still human after all.

But he said none of that. What he did express, resolutely, was "I cannot say the same of you."

Gerard felt his entire face erupt into a skeptical grimace. "Yeah, right," he blurted. "I'm practically an open book. I've told you shit people would have to torture out of me."

"Yes," said Michael. "That's exactly it."

He turned his face towards Gerard, expressionless except for his narrowed eyes. 

"Why would you do that?" he asked.

Gerard waited for Michael to smile or to burst into cackling, but Michael simply stared at him like it was a question he earnestly wanted to know the answer to, and after a few moments Gerard was able to accept that maybe that was the case.

"You're right," he admitted, at a loss for words.

That was when Michael smiled, not the malicious grin Gerard had been anticipating but an almost kind looking upturn of the corners of his mouth. "Do you understand?"

"No," Gerard answered thoughtlessly, and then, "Yes. Yes, sorry. I do."

Michael looked pleased enough with that answer, divided as it was. Or that could have been why he was pleased with it.

"I've decided I like this about you," he said, so soft it hardly sounded like Michael speaking at all.

He had to have been doing it on purpose. Trying to drive Gerard crazy.

"Could've decided you don't."

Michael sighed. 

"If it were a real decision, I might try to," he pondered quietly, "But it never has been. I have disturbingly little control over my fondness for you."

"Oh, stop it," Gerard groaned, turning onto his back. "Don't say that. You can't.”

Michael's laugh was somewhere between amused and nervous. The sound layered over itself, the way it did when he was starting to lose himself a little. "Most people want to be told that they are cared for, don't they?" he reverberated. 

"Took some time to think that one up, too, didn't you," grumbled Gerard, ignoring him. " _Disturbingly little control_. Bastard."

He glanced over at Michael, staring at him with such human earnest in his eyes, and leaned in to kiss the corner of his mouth. "God damn you. Of course I want to be told that."

"I did not like saying it," Michael murmured. "It felt nice."

Their faces were so close that Gerard could feel his words, not the breath of them but the vibrations they left behind in the air. They stayed that way, unmoving, until Michael started to turn away and Gerard stopped him by grabbing his face.

"That's why I didn't like hearing it," he said. "Because it felt nice."

Michael blinked slowly.

If Gerard tried to say any of the words swimming in his head, he already knew they wouldn't come out. So he kissed Michael again, instead.

It was surprisingly warm. Michael, who liked to devolve into playful bites (and had the gall to act confused the first time he sunk his teeth gently into Gerard's jaw and got a swift bite right back) when their kisses went deeper, had gone soft and still, something different in the way he was just barely starting to curl his body towards it.

Gerard pulled away slowly. He tucked a strand of hair behind Michael's ear and stared at him for a long few seconds, even as the unbroken sight of him made Gerard dizzy.

"I want to ask you something strange," he hesitated.

Michael nodded his permission.

"Michael, before," Gerard said quietly. "Would he have wanted this?"

"Like any animal would," whispered Michael.

Gerard leaned closer. "Do you want this?" he asked.

And Michael sighed, so much like that musical sound his laughter always tapered off into. “I should not.”

"I mean, neither should I,” said Gerard, and Michael’s eyes sparked briefly in amusement.

“You know that all I would have to do to soothe the anguish of my own desire is kill you,” he said, like he was only just realizing it himself.

Unsure of how to answer and startled more by the idea of being wanted than the idea of being killed, Gerard said “That's why, yeah.”

Michael’s laugh seemed genuine when it began, but faded into a darker, more hollow sound. 

“But the disgust of ever having wanted at all: that is a part of me. Killing you would be little more than a momentary relief.”

Another little hint poking through the veil, something that didn't belong to the Spiral and the Spiral only. To want was agony because it was human and when it was human it was agony because it was Michael’s, and when it was Michael’s...

Gerard ran his thumb along the uncanny curve of Michael’s jaw. He could feel the slightest ghost of stubble there, so blond it barely showed against the skin. 

“Your desires are not a danger to you,” Michael said. It seemed like an attempt to be reassuring, but he sounded jealous in a way that made Gerard’s heart ache.

“Neither are yours,” he offered.

And Michael stared at him then, with a look on his face so lost that Gerard didn't know what to do about it. The gap between them closed suddenly and he realized with a fascinated jolt that Michael had been the one to initiate a kiss. That Michael had rolled onto his side and closed his eyes and placed his heavy hands flat against Gerard's chest and kissed him.

"See?" Gerard chuckled, astonished, when their lips broke apart. "That didn't kill you."

There was a moment where it looked like Michael wanted to say something, but he beat Gerard to the punch of kissing him to shut him up.

Michael still had work to do on actually being the one to kiss first, an awkward clack of teeth and bumping of noses almost making Gerard curse under his breath in startlement if not for how his mouth was occupied. He slipped his tongue between Michael's lips once they had the hang of it, earning a pleased sigh, hands creeping up the back of Michael's neck to tangle his fingers in that mess of blond curls.

Michael's hands mirrored the movement, up Gerard's chest and over his shoulders. He had a tendency to follow what he did, and it was when Michael copied his actions that Gerard knew he was trying to show affection. He smiled and kissed Michael's jaw, waited a moment to see if he would copy, smiled wider when he did and then pressed their lips together again. Michael pulled on his hairtie and it came undone like a bow, like it was tied back by a single line and not a connected circle, letting Gerard's hair loose so he could twine his hands in it.

Gerard was the one to bite this time, a playful tug at Michael's bottom lip, running the tip of his tongue against where he'd bitten. His hands slid back down to feel the curve of Michael's neck, lower and lower until they were at his waist.

It was when he was fiddling with the buttons of Michael's coat and thoughtlessly began to slip one through its hole that Gerard stopped himself, their kiss breaking apart with a frustrated sound of protest from Michael.

Brows furrowed, Michael leaned in to chase the kiss that had run away from him. "Did I hurt you?" he asked.

"No, it's..." Gerard paused when he actually processed Michael's question. "You're worried about that? You didn't do anything."

"Why else would you stop?" 

He glanced down at that button he'd been about to unfasten, and then back at Michael's face. Michael's eyes followed the movement. "Because I'm not totally sure about what I'm doing," Gerard admitted, "and I- well. I wanted to ask before I kept doing it.”

"What are you asking?" Michael worded slowly, like the words were hastily pieced together.

Having to say it out loud felt suddenly daunting. "I mean, it's," Gerard struggled, "Y'know- I don't think I should, actually. I think I should stop right now and I should probably never touch you again."

Gerard waited to be told he was right. Michael stared at him. 

He prodded at Gerard's hand laying limp on the bed, clearly toying with the idea of lacing their fingers together.

“I think I might like it,” he said softly. The same voice he'd used when he spoke of his fondness, tinged dark with the slightest electrical hum.

Instead of the rejection he expected, something like anxiety or excitement started creeping up Gerard's throat. "Might like it?"

As if honing in on the presence of adrenaline in his body, following the footpath left behind by his eagerness, Michael's eyes swiveled toward Gerard's lips when he spoke. "If you kept touching me," Michael answered. "I think I would like that."

Gerard swallowed and Michael's gaze traced the twitch in his throat hungrily. 

"You do want me to keep going, then?"

Michael licked his lips, pink and swollen from how heated they'd gotten with eachother.

"Yes. If you will have me."

Gerard opened his mouth to say something but faltered before the words could leave his mouth, leaned forward to kiss him again but pulled away at the last second, finally just pulled Michael on top of him by the collar of his shirt and kissed him roughly. " _If_ you will _have me_ ," he grumbled. "Right. Go on and take your coat off."

Michael smiled wordlessly, his thighs at either side of Gerard's hips, and slid the fabric through his body like a hot knife. Satisfied if not slightly unnerved, Gerard let his hands settle at Michael’s waist. His body felt so strange and unstructured, angles that didn’t quite match the shapes Gerard could see beneath his hands. It certainly shouldn’t have been a comfort to touch someone whose entire being was so wrong in every way, yet somehow it felt easier to him than even touching his own body; if he were to think about it, that uncanniness of sensations not matching up wasn’t so far off from how it felt to have his hands on himself.

Gerard kicked the discarded coat off the edge of the bed. One hand found its way back to Michael's neck to pull their faces together hastily.

Kissing had been something Michael had to learn — Gerard couldn't tell if it was something he'd had to learn himself, but having a partner just as bad at it as he was made him feel comfortable in a way he had never realized he was missing. Being close to others never got easier when it seemed like everyone was better at it than he was, like he had catching up to do. But Michael bit and was too eager sometimes and his hands were hard to find a place for, so when Gerry bit and started seeming too desperate for closeness and couldn't figure out where his hands were supposed to go, it didn't really matter as much.

Gerard dragged his hand down Michael's chest, past where he knew those scars were. He took pause as he realized what he wanted.

"Can I...?"

Michael blinked a few times and, once he understood what the question was, nodded. He stared down at Gerard's hands as he fumbled with the buttons, giggling quietly when he finally got them all undone. A couple more nervous laughs spilled out when his chest was bared, not bothering to shrug the shirt off the rest of the way, and another escaped as he watched Gerard bite his lip at the sight of him.

The scars were neat pink lines, jagged at the very edges, meeting in the middle where Gerard leaned forward to press his lips. He hadn't realized how heated it could get him to be with someone with a body so much like his own and he was quickly growing breathless as he kissed those lines over and over, relishing the way Michael was arching into the touch, the way his head was starting to tip back.

He let his kisses linger there until he couldn't take the temptation of Michael's exposed neck anymore, working his way up with his lips and finally sinking his teeth gently into the curve of Michael's pulse, the crook of his shoulder, the soft spot right below his ear. Having teeth at his throat always made Michael laugh and this was just the same, the sound enough to make Gerard's head throb pleasantly until it was numb; the anxious titter that had come with exposing his body tempered back into that contented, repetitive mess of sighs, echoing into the room when Gerard met his lips again.

Gerard let his hands drift down to Michael's hips, under the bottom edge of his shirt so he could press his thumbs into the bare skin there. Michael was already starting to melt against his body, his own hands an awkward bulk on Gerard's chest. Gerard wasn't sure what would overwhelm him, so he took it as slow as he could stand; a gradual drag downwards, rubbing his thumbs against his inner thighs, feeling for responses that came mostly in a small shudder or a vibration in Michael's throat. 

He lifted his own hips to try and ease Michael against them, tightening the pressure between their bodies until Michael couldn't resist grinding down on him as they kissed.

The friction was enough to draw a breathy moan from Michael's throat. Gerard felt him shifting to push all his weight onto just the right spot, Michael's teeth nipping at his lower lip when he got it exactly where he wanted it.

"You want me to fuck you, or are you gonna finish yourself off like this?" Gerard taunted.

"You're teasing me," gasped Michael. His voice was a panicked mechanical whir that made Gerard's eyelids flutter dizzily and God, he sounded _tormented_. Offended, even. Gerard had to suppress a laugh.

"You're so dramatic." He dragged his hand back up Michael's thigh, slowly enough to savor the way he started rolling his hips forward in almost too-eager anticipation. "But I mean, you're right. I am teasing you. If it's too much—"

Before he could finish, Michael hissed " _it is_ " in a fit of static and finally Gerard laughed at that. What a brat.

"Alright! Alright," he tried to placate him, doing his best to hold in more charmed laughter, "I'm sorry. Didn't think you'd get desperate like this."

"Undignified," Michael amended. "It's undignified, and you did this to me, and I- I let you."

Gerard's fingers found the cloth seam between Michael's legs, traced it slowly upwards to the button of his trousers. "And you're going to keep letting me?" he questioned, maybe a bit more smug than he should have been.

"Yes," Michael keened. From the urgency of it, it was hard to tell if it was an answer to the question or if it was a cry of relief at finally having his arousal touched again, even that briefly.

Having struggled to unfasten the button, Gerard dipped his fingers past the undone zipper, under the waistband of his underwear, teased the soft notch just above his hard-on. Finally feeling skin on skin made Michael's whole body shiver and his head lolled downwards, long blond hair a curtain obscuring his face.

Gerard was vaguely aware of a heavy weight on his shoulders. Michael's hands twisting themselves helplessly into the fabric of his sleeves.

"Oh," he breathed as his finger slipped further down. "Oh, you're- you're actually really turned on. You're _really_ wet. Okay."

Gerard could almost feel a bit guilty about how long he'd delayed actually touching Michael; he was wet enough that it was hard to get any friction but so swollen that the slightest movement made his hips jerk, that he was probably going to come in seconds if Gerard kept pressing those firm little circles into him. Michael was dramatic, sure, but he was actually startlingly sensitive, practically halfway to orgasm before he'd even been properly touched. Those tortured whimpers maybe hadn't been _quite_ as exaggerated as they'd seemed.

But Gerard still gently hushed him when he slipped his hand lower and Michael made a sound not unlike a growl at having that rhythmic pressure torn away. It wouldn’t be hard to work him open, with how wet he was, and maybe he’d last a bit longer getting fucked instead; was it selfish, not wanting him to come too quickly? Gerard pressed a kiss to the side of Michael’s head and carefully started to thread into him, dipping the tips of his fingers into his cunt and massaging until he could work them deeper. Selfish, maybe, but the complaints were starting to relax into shivers and quiet whines when the tightness eased away and Gerard's fingers were soused down to his knuckles.

“Is that good?” Gerard murmured, and the sound of his own voice was strangely—

Nice. A warm little tingle at the back of his neck. Michael gasped a confirmation into the crook of Gerard’s shoulder, pleased if not still a little frustrated that the pace had changed. His hips were stuttering into the deliberate, gradually quickening pulse of fingers inside of him, meeting Gerard’s lips eagerly when he nudged his chin upwards to kiss him again.

When their lips closed together, Gerard saw stars.

Not being touched wasn’t exactly a preference of his, but it was a loss he could settle for easily. As far as he had allowed Michael past the reasonable boundaries, willingly exposed his jugular even though he knew better, he atleast knew he couldn’t — shouldn’t — expect Michael to return the favor of fucking him. Fingering someone else and then jacking off alone in a hotel room to the thought of it later was far, far more than he could have asked for, if he was honest with himself.

He liked it, though. Making someone else feel good. He wanted to think that he didn't like it so much that he could get off on it untouched, like he was starting to suspect he might be, but...

Unable to stop himself, he moaned quietly, and that warmth afforded by his own voice started to spread through his shoulders, the hands of it wrapping around his throat and scraping its nails down his spine to make his back arch. He felt a shudder run through Michael's body in time with his own and they collided in the middle with quiet sounds from both of them.

What he'd thought was arousal was beginning to feel more like the strikes of an icepick breaking him apart, something that didn't belong trying to make an opening it could crawl in through. Gerard was aware of himself from the inside and outside both, and the two didn't align quite right.

Almost cautiously, Gerard twisted his hand to roll his thumb against Michael's clit. Feeling the shell around him start to break under its burden, his hips stuttered upwards into the sensation that wasn't meant for him, suddenly lost in who he was touching, in not knowing which one of them was making those overwhelmed noises. He slid his fingers out from inside of him to focus better on his throbbing clit, drinking in the trill that came from the back of Michael's throat when he pulled out.

It didn't feel the same as touching himself. It was a distinct sensation of an act upon someone else's body, yet at the same time something being done to him, and something he was doing — he wasn't vast enough to fit all of the thoughts rushing into him, didn't have enough senses to properly perceive the true nature of them. He tried to find his own thoughts among the invading chaos that was not his and felt them fall completely out of his grasp, and where it should have terrified him to lose sight of himself he instead let the water wash over him and cleanse him away until there was nothing left behind but sharp, twisted angles. His feelings had been so small in comparison, so smooth and shapeless and bland in comparison to that prickling otherwordly heat that filled him when he started fucking Michael on his fingers again.

He didn't know anything could feel this _good_. It wasn't meant for him but it was bleeding into him regardless, some crevice in reality he'd managed to widen by touching someone he should have kept his hands off of. It was a recursion of perception, his and not his which was his.

“Fuck,” he gasped into their interrupted kiss. The intensity had hit him so fast. “Fuck, fuck, fuck, _fuck_ —” 

He quickened the pace of his fingers between Michael’s legs and the shivering moan it coaxed into their kiss made his skull vibrate, the stars in his eyes exploding into fireworks and the fireworks falling into sparks and the sparks burning holes into his skin for bliss to be poured into when he curled them just right.

 _That_ made Michael's back arch, a translation between bodies that could only manifest as the sensation of Gerard's spine splintering. Where those twinkling lights had been were instead swirling, dancing patterns in the backs of his eyes, twisting into each other endlessly and pulsing with each whimper his arousal drew out of him. The shape of his own hand stopped existing beyond the abstract ideas of hot and wet and more, chipped away by the same agonizingly sharp fractals that were slithering into the spaces behind his eyes.

Past the metallic ache of his ears ringing, past how vocal Michael was being, he could hear those shapes in his vision turning against each other like gears, the sound of his own mind struggling to function with how it was being overworked. He focused on the moans warping the air they escaped into, that lax desire to make it last as long as he could replaced by a feverish _more more more_ now that he could feel it for himself. His touch was frantic against the sweet spot he'd curled into, each slip of his fingers pulling him undone further and further.

Michael's hips twitched with a shaky gasp and it all honed to a razor's edge at once, a roiling cloud of ink spilling into water, the jolt of adrenaline from a loss of footing, every color at once melding into a white hot light that could only be touched and not seen. It was like Gerard's skull had cracked and every sensation that'd been forced into him was spilling out of the wound, washing over him and getting caught on the freshly broken shell of his body. The height of the climax collapsed into waves of a familiar fever that made their bodies shudder into each other, the agonizing crest of it just barely falling away into something he could recognize.

The moans it managed to tear from Gerard's throat would have been humiliatingly sharp if not for how the sound were lost in Michael's voice. His fingers slowed to a more gentle pulse inside of him, rolling the arch of his thumb in quick, rough circles around his clit to try and draw out the both of their orgasms for as long as he could manage. He couldn't tell when their lips had met again but he liked the way Michael whimpered quietly against his open mouth as he was eased through the rest of his climax, liked that he could feel what was coaxing those noises out of him.

It was still intense, achingly so, but the impossible patterns had faded into more tolerable thrums of colored light. Colors he knew, forming shapes that had endings to them.

Their legs were tangled with his hand somewhere in the middle, moving slowly past the end of their climax to taper them off, to take advantage of the lingering sensitivity until they were able to handle stopping. He was careful when he finally pulled his hand away, rubbing the wetness between his thumb and forefinger before thoughtlessly wiping them on the bed and grabbing Michael by the face to deepen their kiss.

When he pulled away to take a deep breath, Michael's eyes widened.

His brows furrowed together in what seemed to be concern and the bottom half of his face coated in bright red, Michael stared until he finally, in a mix of amusement and uncharacteristic shock, tittered “You’re bleeding.”

It took Gerard a moment to figure out what to do, to puzzle out where his hands or his face could be, but when he wiped his mouth and his hand came away bloody, the pieces snapped together and he realized he was having a nosebleed.

"Did you do that?” he managed, gazing dumbfounded at his hand all smeared with red.

"I would have warned you if I'd known." Michael raised a hand and awkwardly tucked a few strands of hair behind Gerard's ear, a stilted but well-intentioned attempt at mirroring Gerard's own shows of affection. "Are you alright?"

Concerned as he was in his own odd way, he seemed amused when Gerard pulled at the shirt still hanging from his shoulders and started wiping his face on it, glancing down at the fresh stain with a confused, dreamy smile.

"I'm alright," assured Gerard. He tilted his head back and pinched the bridge of his nose, waving his free hand dismissively. "I don't think I was built for that, but, ah, yeah. I'm alright."

He could feel Michael staring, even with his eyes closed, so he added "And I did like it, just to be clear."

Michael hummed thoughtfully and rested his head on Gerard's chest.

“I don't want you looking into my brain whenever you feel like it. But I liked it that time."

Michael laughed at that. The sound resonated through Gerard's ribs. "I didn't look into your mind. I couldn't."

Gerard cracked his eyes open. "What a shame that must be for you — bet you'd like to," he accused playfully.

Michael was silent for long enough that Gerard wondered if he had hit a nerve somehow, but eventually it seemed more that he was too comfortable to want to speak, his face pressed right against Gerard's heartbeat, his body limp. 

Gerard didn't like how nice it felt. Where Michael's back should have risen and fallen with breath, there was no movement, no sound, just weight and warmth resting on top of him. Just as he was about to wrap his arms around Michael to rest his hands on his back, he shook the urge off and shifted in a false show of discomfort.

"Mind if I grab a cigarette?" he decided on. "Sorry."

He struggled to sit up beneath the weight of what had just happened to him, about to nudge Michael gently out of the way when he sat up and looked Gerard in the eye.

"Were I given the chance, I would refuse it," said Michael.

"What?"

Michael presented him with a pristine lit cigarette.

"To look into your mind. I wouldn't even feel tempted."

Grinning wide, staring Gerard in the face with the burning cherry reflected orange and twisting in his eyes, Michael said "You would become so simple, if I were to look into your thoughts. And clarified is not how I want you."

Gerard blinked a few times before he took the cigarette, somehow already billowing smoke like Michael had been keeping it tucked away somewhere and was merely waiting for the right time to pull it out.

"Oh."

Clarified.

The word filled him with an unfamiliar warmth. He took a long, deep drag, deeper than he should have without knowing where the cigarette came from, tucking Michael's head under his chin before he exhaled. Michael gladly buried his face into the crook of his neck. Maybe it was because he no longer had an excuse to escape the warm tangle they were in, maybe having a cigarette made him feel less like a cornered animal, maybe he was accepting that he was trapped like this, maybe he wanted to be able to like the way it felt. But no matter what it was, he was sinking back into the bed, and he was okay with it.

"Why did you have this?" Gerard asked. There were a lot of things he wanted to ask, but that was the question he settled on.

"For you," sighed Michael, and Gerard knew that it was the same: there were a lot of answers Michael could give, but that was the one he settled on.

"Well," Gerard said. "Thank you."


End file.
